By Carl Weinschenk
It’s about a month from the 2026 midterm elections and virtually every data point looks rosy for the Democrats. Seats in the House of Representatives and Senate that were not realistic targets a few months ago suddenly are on the table. Same for state houses. The 2026 midterm polls suggest that the fights are almost exclusively on red turf.
Why are things breaking this way? Let’s look at the state of play less than a month from the election — and end (and start, I guess) with the obligatory cautionary note to which all politicians and partisans must pay attention: Polls don’t vote. People do.
Here are seven reasons that Democrats appear to have the upper hand:
Reason 1: The context of the 2026 midterm elections is poor for Trump
As a rule, the party holding the White House loses seats in the midterm. People are generally disappointed because the lies told by the candidate are being revealed because the promises made by the candidate during the campaign are not being kept.
The midterm fade is especially true in the midterms of a second term. The incumbent is a lame duck, administrators are leaving for lobbyist jobs and world has moved on. The air is seeping out of the balloon. This is worse for Trump. The Biden intermission has stretched things out. Donald Trump didn’t keep his mouth shut during the interregnum. So he has been front and center half-again as long as a normal two-termer. Trump is a loud and ubiquitous presence and seems ffffffffunwell. Long story short: People are sick of the guy and afraid of what he may do.
Reason 2: Follow the money
In this case, the bad vibes go way beyond the fact that it’s a second term midterm. Political pros are tremendous at making convincing arguments that things are going swimmingly. The “tell,” as poker players call a subtle indication of what an opponent really is feeling about her or her cards, is where the campaign is investing funds and where it is going. You can’t spin ad buys.
The Trump campaign is spending money and making visits to places it shouldn’t have to. Punchbowl News (via Political Wire) puts it this way:
With less than one month until Election Day, Trump and Vice President JD Vance are flying around the country mostly to states they won by double digits in 2024, a shocking travel schedule in the heat of the election season.
Trump is going this evening to a rally in Grand Island, Neb. Trump won Nebraska by 21 points. Grand Island is in the state’s most conservative House district, a seat that Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) won by 60 point…
Vance is headed to Alaska, a state he and Trump won by 13 points, to try to rescue the faltering candidacy of Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK).
The Internet is full of similar commentaries and podcasts along the same lines. The bottom line: The administration is telling us things are not going well through its actions.
Reason 3: Generic failure
The Generic Congressional Ballot is a measure of which party voters want steering the ship of state. As of October 9, Real Clear Politics’ average of 12 pollsters found the Democrats ahead by 7.9%.
That is a big number as these things go. If the nation as a whole had voted 7.9% more Democratic in 2024, Vote This Time’s simulator points to a potential pickup of 42 seats. The total would have been 48 seats two years earlier. The simulator is rudimentary and the comparison is apples and oranges. It is highly unlikely to be that high. It simply illustrates that a shift of almost 10% would be a big deal.
Reason 4: The calls are coming from inside the house
Figuring out why Donald Trump does things is difficult. They generally track back in one way or another to money and ego, but the details are confusing. Trump has done so many things to hurt the Republicans that a good case can be made that he doesn’t even want the party to win.
Some highlights:
- The administration’s immigration policies and how they are being implemented have alienated the Latino voters who were vital to his victory in 2024
- America’s approach to international relationships seem hapless and designed to alienate allies and line Trump and his family’s pockets – and he doesn’t seem to be trying to hide his greed
- Trump’s treatment of the press is a visceral reminder of why people across the political spectrum don’t like him
- The tariffs, inflationary policies and cuts to healthcare are disproportionately hurting rural white voters, the people who made Trump president
- Trump’s inability to stay awake during public appearances are bizarre and embarrassing — and convey a symbolism that’s impossible to miss
The theme to this list – which could be much longer – is that he is wantonly hurting his own partisans. This makes the life for GOP House and Senate candidates incredibly difficult. The situation of having the most important figure throwing bricks at his own coalition is surreal and unprecedented.
Consider the plight of poor Byron Donalds, the GOP candidate for governor of Florida. Donalds was closely aligned with Trump — before Trump starting tanking. Donalds removed images of the president from his website. The White House screamed and Donalds’ campaign restored the images. Trump then said he would appear twice with Donalds. The candidate surely does not want Trump to show up.
Reason 5: What if they had a war and nobody came?
The victories Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race, Abdul El-Sayed’s in the the Michigan Senate primary and others by the Democratic Socialists of America and those aligned with them raised the possibility of a split of the Democratic party into left and centrist factions. The key issue was to be the war in Gaza.
This did not happen. The left and right wings of the Democratic party are living with each other quite well. The understanding is that a Trump win in the midterms is an existential threat. Political reality and love of country makes strange bedfellows.
Reason 6: Watching the detectives
There is a real possibility that Republican electoral chicanery will end up being more bark than bite. Those assigned to carry out shady schemes likely are asking themselves some serious question: “Is what I am being told to do legal?” “Do I really trust Donald Trump to throw me the pardon he promises if things go south?” “If so, how much money would he want for the pardon?” “Am I sure any pardon would stand in court if it was found to have been issued in furtherance of a crime?” “What happens to me at the state level, where there are no presidential pardons?” “Who will pay my legal bills?” “If the Democrats take control of my state, will they come after me?”
The same line of thought will run through things that are extreme but legal. In their hearts, many professional Republicans certainly understand that the day is not too far off when Trump will be considered the man who demolished the GOP. Will right-of-center lawyers, pollsters and consultants want to be seen as true believers who worked for him until the end?
The same dynamic driving Republican politicians to jump ship likely will play out among those called on to attack the elections. It’s simple: People do what is in their best interests. Trump increasingly looks like a bad bet. This may lead Trump supporters to stay within the legal limits and lead to a safer election than anticipated.
On the Democratic side, state governments and others are taking the threats very seriously. Marc Elias and other attorneys are as well. It may be that the elections are cleaner than people anticipate.
Reason 7: Democrats are eager to vote
Things look ideal right now. And it’s not all polling: Actual votes are being counted. According to the University of Florida Election Lab, early results favor the Democrats. It’s normal for the Democrats to lead in early voting. We’ll know soon enough if the percentage is greater this time around.
As of October 9, the Election Lab said that 2.54 million early votes had been cast (480,000 in-person and 2.1 million mail ballot returns). Nineteen states allow party identification of their early voters. The total among these states was 1.2 million votes. The party breakdown was 55.4% for the Democrats and 27.2% for the Republicans. (All numbers are rounded off and, of course, nobody knows who the votes are for.)
Every election turns on who votes. A KFF Health Tracking Poll released this week offers good news for the Democrats:
With about a month to go before Election Day, the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll finds a large enthusiasm gap between partisans, with Democratic voters much more likely than Republican voters to say they are “more motivated” to vote this year than usual.
The caveat: closeout games are hard
Chuck Todd – a numbers guy who turned into the moderator of Meet the Press and then back into a numbers guy – does an interesting job of discussing recent polling.
On his podcast — cleverly or not called The Chuck ToddCast — Todd discussed an AARP poll of the Maine Senate race that found Democrat Troy Jackson way ahead of Republican incumbent Susan Collins among voters under 35. That good news is somewhat mitigated by the fact that less than 70% of those under 35 years of age are extremely motivated to vote. That’s a huge amount less than the 87% of those over 50 who show that level of enthusiasm.
Said Todd:
Whether Gen-Z votes or not [is] the basic tension in this election and really the difference between a good night for Democrats and a tsunami. The younger this electorate gets the better these surveys look for Democrats across the board. And the younger this electorate gets the less certain those voters are…of showing up. That’s why all the efforts of the Democrats in this last month is going to have to be about figuring how to talk to voters under 30 and figuring out that they have a voting plan.
It seems that the midterms are for the Democrats to lose. Whether that is true cannot be said with 100 percent accuracy. The bottom line is as it always is: VOTE!
(Image: Marco Verch via https://ccnull.de/)